The Danish Gambling Authority (DGA) announced August 28 that it successfully petitioned authorities to block a total of 49 illegal iGaming sites, the ninth time that the regulator has successfully done so, bringing the total number of sites blocked to 276.
According to the agency, the Copenhagen City Court first ruled in favor of blocking all 49 cases back on July 14. The sites were said to have operated illegally since 2012, when the country’s gaming market first began to expand.
Anders Dorph, director of the DGA, said in a statement that it was crucial to “ensure that Danes are not exposed to gambling that is offered illegally in Denmark and that does not comply with the requirements for consumer protection, among other things, set out in the gambling legislation.
“At the same time, we must ensure that the gambling operators who have a license to offer gambling in Denmark can operate on the Danish market without unfair competition from providers who do not have to live up to Danish requirements.”
Moving forward, the DGA said it expects to start blocking illegal sites multiple times a year, instead of its previous standard of once a year.
“We are constantly trying to optimize our efforts against illegal gambling, and one of our latest initiatives is, among other things, to block illegal websites more often than before. This means that the illegal sites are active in Denmark for a shorter period of time because the sites will be blocked sooner after we have identified them,” Dorph continued.
One detail of note from the recent sweep is that 13 of the 49 blocked sites were “skins betting” platforms, or online casinos wherein patrons use virtual items from various mainstream video games as currency to bet and pay out winnings.
The phenomenon is relatively new, but has already caught the attention of other regulators around the world, including the U.S., the U.K. and Australia.
